1. Palestinian Statelessness as the Core of the Mideast Crisis
Juan Cole

2. Citizenship Margaret Somers: Citizenship as the right to have rights
“Citizenship is man’s basic right for it is nothing less than the right to have rights. Remove this priceless possession and there remains a stateless person, disgraced and degraded in the eyes of his countrymen.” - Chief Justice Earl Warren, US Supreme Court, 1958

3. High & Low Somers: Citizen-ness exists on a continuum from high to low
And is produced by the intersection of state, market and civil society

4. Levels of Citizenship

5. Levels of Citizenship

6. League of Nations Mandates
League of Nations Charter recognized former Ottoman territories of Palestine, Syria and Iraq
As nearly ready for nationhood, citizenship
Established British and French Mandates to render administrative assistance to them in becoming independent
Even British envisaged Palestinian state at end of Mandate
1917 Balfour declaration establishing Jewish home in Palestine not meant to be territorial
Or to detract from Palestinian rights (Lord Curzon)

7. Post WW I Stateless Millions of White Russians
Hundreds of thousands of Armenians
Thousands of Hungarians
Hundreds of thousands of Germans
Half a million Spaniards
Ideological states (Franco, Stalin) deprived citizens of citizenship if they held the wrong views

8. Nazis Arendt: Nazis Demoted some minorities to non-citizens
As with Jews
Goebbels: depriving them of citizenship made Jews “the scum of the earth”
Nazi press predicted that other nations would not accept them as refugees
Thus confirming their status as “scum”

9. Mandate Palestine In this context of induced statelessness
British Mandate Palestine functioned as refuge
Not just for persecuted Jews but for stateless ones
Thus, McDonald White Paper restricting immigration to Palestine,
Envisaging Palestinian state in 10 years
Was criticized for depriving 100,000 Jews of Sudetenland of refuge at a time they had become stateless

10. Statelessness on a Continuum
Statelessness by degrees:
Illegal immigrants are not fully stateless
Typically they retain citizenship in country of origin
Minorities with national aspirations of their own (Basques) are not fully stateless
Citizens of states with impaired sovereignty (e.g. in , American-occupied Iraq) are not fully stateless
Statelessness means
the complete lack of citizenship in a recognized state
the lack of a passport
Lack of constitutional protections

11. Decline of Statelessness
Post WW II order granted broad citizenship rights
In contemporary world, out of nearly 7 billion human beings
Only 12 million or so are stateless
Include 90,000 “Bidun” in Kuwait
300,000 Syrian Kurds denaturalized in 1962
4.5 million Palestinians

12. Population of Palestine 1943
Total:
1,676,571
Palestinians:
1,176,571
Jewish Settlers
500,000
Have 7% of land

14. 1948-1949 Palestinians Displaced
Approximately 730,000 out of 1,300,000 Palestinians displaced

16. Areas to which Palestinians Fled
Most Palestinians fled to the West Bank or Gaza
A significant number went to Lebanon and Jordan
Those remaining in Israel granted citizenship (now about 1.5 mn.)

17. Implications for Lebanon
Palestinians not given citizenship
Unlike Armenians
Would have tipped balance toward Sunnis
Squalid camps
Competition with Shiite peasants for water, resources
Lack of work permits, business licenses
There are now 300,000 – 400,000 stateless Palestinians in Lebanon

18. Nahr al-Bared

19. Gaza Palestinians not granted Egyptian citizenship in Gaza
Ruled by Egypt
Directly ruled by Israel
Since 2005, in limbo, lacking a state with sovereignty
No harbor, airport
Subjected to ongoing blockade, embargo even of food
10% of Gazan children stunted from lack of food
Gazans without citizenship for 61 years
Current population 1.5 million

20. West Bank
Jordan grants citizenship in 1949 to West Bank Palestinians under its rule
In 1967 Israel takes West Bank
Effectively renders them stateless
Jordan, Arab League recognize PLO as sole Palestinian spokesman at Rabat, 1974
Formally removes Jordanian citizenship 1988
rendered them formally stateless
For the stateless and semi-stateless, citizenship can be temporary
Palestinians in West Bank & E. Jerusalem 2.4 mn.

21. Implications of Statelessness
Lack of control over water, land, and air
Gaza removed from world market, besieged
West Bankers have land and property expropriated without recompense
No control over Israeli immigration
Aquifer water rights interfered with
Checkpoints, lack of access to highways,
Difficulty of travel
Lack of speedy hospital access

22. Palestinians Rate low on citizenship in a state
Rate low on access to, incorporation into market
Some civil society, though circumscribed by Palestinian Authority (which lacks most elements of a state except for police and coercion)
Attempt to gain observer state status at UNO, opposed by US, Israel

23. Regional Response Arab, Muslim sympathy for plight of Palestinians
Satellite t.v., internet
Radicalization and terrorism
Al-Qaeda
Hamas
Iraqi Mahdi Army, Iraqi Hamas
Ahmadinejad in Iran
Continued Israeli insecurity even after fall of Baghdad

24. End-Game Scenarios Two-state solution One-state solution
Long-term Apartheid
Implies growing radicalization, terrorism
Boycotts of Israel
British trade unions, Canadian Federal workers, etc.
Only two of these endgames end Palestinian statelessness